Second Best
by Selune
Summary: Heero's lover breaks up with him over his love for a certain ex-pilot.


Disclaimer: Neither Gundam Wing nor its characters are mine. They are the property of their respective owners. Devon is mine.  
  
Pairings: OC+1, 1+2, 2+OC, mention of past 2x1, 3x1, and 4x1  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Warnings: Continuation, angst, possibly OOC  
  
Second Best  
  
A.C. 200  
  
Heero looked at his lover, who was sitting in the chair across from him. They were in his and Duo's apartment, but Duo was currently at work.  
  
"What do you mean, you want to break up with me?" Heero asked, genuinely confused. He couldn't figure out why Devon would wan to break up with him-- they had been having so much fun. "Do you not like me anymore?"  
  
Devon sighed and leaned forward in the chair that was reminiscent of a 21st century Lay-Z-Boy. He took Hero's hands in his and looked deep into the other man's eyes. "Heero, I lo-like you a lot, but I will not be second best in your heart. Not to anyone, especially not to someone who doesn't want to be in your heart. Especially not to him."  
  
"What do you mean?" Heero asked, pretending not to know whom Devon was talking about.  
  
"You know what I mean," Devon said. He released Heero's hands and stood up. He walked around the living room of Heero and Duo's apartment, finally stopping at a bookcase. He picked up a picture of the two occupants', taken shortly after the war. "I mean him."  
  
Devon threw the frame to Hero, and he caught it. Heero looked at the picture. In it, he and Duo were at some amusement park in Ohio. It had been taken by one of the park employees at the entrance gate. Duo had his arm slung casually across Heero's shoulders, and he was grinning like a maniac. It had been their first time at an amusement park, and he had been immensely excited. Heero was smiling, slightly, but for a completely different reason. Heero had been ecstatic about the prospect of being alone, kind of, with Duo for a whole day.  
  
"You love him," Devon accused Heero. "We've been together for five months, and you still love him."  
  
Heero tore his eyes away from the picture--his favorite one--to look at Devon. "You knew when we got together that I loved him. I may have been with you for five months, but I've wanted to be with *him* for five years." Heero stood up and walked over to Devon. He stood behind him and put his chin on the slightly taller man's shoulders, wrapping his arms around Devon's waist. "But he's straight; no threat to you or us. I'm just a friend to him. He doesn't even know that I'm gay."  
  
Devon stepped away from Heero's embrace and turned to glare at him. "That's just what I mean! He's your best friend, but he doesn't know your sexual orientation, but less about us!" Devon turned back to Heero and placed his hands on the other man's cheeks. "I'm tired of sneaking around, of only being able to see you on certain days at certain times so that he won't find out about us, about you. I'm tired of him always coming in first place for your affections without even trying. Without him even wanting or knowing what he has won."  
  
Heero blinked back tears at Devon's words. Even years after the war was over, Heero couldn't bring himself to cry in front of anyone other than Duo. After all, if boys didn't cry, men certainly didn't. "What do you want me to do?" Heero asked. "Do you want me to tell you that I don't love him? That, no matter what, I will always and forever love you most of all? That, if he wanted me, for whatever reason, I wouldn't go to him? I can't tell you that; it would be a lie. I *do* love him; I won't love you the most forever because I don't love you the most right now; and if he wanted me to play the Catholic school boy to his Catholic priest, I would do it in a heartbeat.  
  
"But I can tell you this: None of that matters. Duo *doesn't* love me like I love him. Sure, we had sex a couple of times during the war, but that was strictly for comfort, and I was always bottom. He wasn't the only pilot I let fuck me during the war, either; almost all of them had me at one time or another. And almost all of them had each other, too. After all, we were fifteen and soldiers. We had raging hormones and broken security to worry about."  
  
"Yes, you've told me this before," Devon said. He had remove his hands from Heero's face during the other's long-winded speech, and had moved over to the chair that Heero had been sitting at. He picked up the picture and studied it. "Quatre had you after he thought he'd killed Trowa. Trowa had you after you self-destructed. Wufei never had you. And Duo had you every time the two of you had a joint mission. He was a horny little fucker."  
  
Devon looked at the picture some more, his fingers tracing the lines of Heero's smile. "You know," he said, "I've never seen you this happy."  
  
"Well, I've never been that happy, before or since," Heero explained. "The war was over, so I didn't have to kill anymore, and I hadn't yet realized what effect the end of the war would have on mine and Duo's "relationship." The next day, he started seeing a girl named Hannah, and I realized that we would go to being just friends. I--"  
  
"I want you to tell him," Devon said. "About us. You asked me what I wanted you to do, and I want you to tell Duo that you and I are lovers, not just good friends like he thinks. You don't have to tell him that you're in love with him, just that you and I are an item."  
  
Heero looked down at Devon before crouching down in front of him. Their eyes found each other, both pairs leaking conspicuously from the sides. Heero had known that request was coming since the start of the conversation. "Why did you have to ask for that, Devon. Almost anything else, I could give you, but not that. I'm sorry, Devon. Telling him is too much of a risk. I can't take the chance of him hating me for what I am and for what I 'm not."  
  
Devon nodded and stood up. He dried his eyes and waited as Heero did the same. "I guess this is good-bye, then," Devon said.  
  
Heero nodded and moved to hug Devon. "I'm sorry I couldn't be the guy you needed me to be," he murmured in Devon's ear.  
  
"I'm sorry I couldn't be the guy you wanted me to be," Devon whispered back before walking out the front door.  
  
Duo bumped into Devon on his way in. He walked over to Heero with a concerned look on his face. "Why has Devon been crying?" he asked Heero. "Did something bad happen?"  
  
Heero looked at the man he loved, glad that Duo couldn't tell that he had been crying, also. "Kind of," he said. "Devon broke up with his girlfriend today. They'd been dating for five months."  
  
"Oh, five months is nothing. Kelly and me have been going out for over a year," Duo said. He then went into a long, detailed monologue about how wonderful Kelly was.  
  
Heero listened to Duo with one ear, nodding at the appropriate spots of the oft-told tale. The more Duo talked of his current "love of his life," the more Heero realized that he would never have him the way he wanted to. Heero also realized that being second best to Duo was better than being first best to anyone else.  
  
OWARI  
  
Selune 


End file.
